The Yankees clinched the first wild card with a weekend series win over the Red Sox. The Yankees now have a five-game lead for the first wild-card berth (four plus the tiebreaker) with 26 games to play.
Coming off the big weekend with a West Coast trip beginning on Monday, let’s go through some questions and comments from readers.
With every game mattering now, what can be done to give Brent Headrick, Paul Blackburn, and David Bednar proper rest going into October? (Besides scoring seven runs per game and the starters going six to seven innings each game.) – Chris
Well, Chris, I think you answered the question. The Yankees need to stop playing close games and Headrick, Blackburn and Bednar will stop being overworked. It’s obvious Headrick needs rest. He’s allowed eight baserunners and four earned runs in his last 2 1/3 innings over three games. This comes after allowing four earned runs in 35 games between June 10 and August 23. Blackburn also looks fatigued, and while he hasn’t allowed an earned run since July 29, he has had a lot of traffic against him recently and has needed some bad baserunning and unbelievable defensive plays to keep the opposition off the board. Bednar, on the other hand, was grossly overworked in the first two months of the season, but has had pretty adequate rest of late. He has only pitched once in the last 10 days. We’re getting to the point where he will have to pitch just to get work.
This offense isn’t about to start scoring even five runs per game consistently, with or without Aaron Judge. And the starting pitching isn’t going to give length consistently because the Yankees may start to back off Cam Schlittler’s workload, Max Fried and Carlos Rodon are being limited by pitch counts, Will Warren is untrustworthy (Sunday was the third time in 63 career starts he pitched at least seven innings) and Elmer Rodriguez is an unknown. That leaves Gerrit Cole who is coming off major surgery. The Yankees will continue to use their three elite relievers pretty steadily until the division race is over, for better or worse.
Will you leave Austin Wells alone now that he has hit two home runs in one inning? – Keith
No, I won’t, Keith. Wells did hit two home runs in one inning on Sunday. The first was a left-on-left home run off reliever Jovani Moran, so Wells deserves credit for that one. The second was off a 49-mph lob from an infielder pitching, and Wells deserves no praise for that.
From Thursday through the first game Saturday, Wells struck out in seven straight plate appearances. Then Wells had two RBIs in the second game on Saturday and five RBIs on Sunday. He had 21 RBIs in 101 games entering Sunday. His RBI total for the season jumped by 24 percent and he had 20 percent of his RBIs for the season in one game. We all recognize how truly awful that is, right? Wells’ OPS is at .593 and he is 34 percent worse than league average with 26 games remaining. It’s one of the worst offensive seasons for a regular player in the history of the game.
I’m hoping beyond hope that in 2027 Aaron Judge is their full-time DH. If that happens do you think there is a possibility of Luis Garcia being moved to second base next year in order to have him and Ben Rice in the lineup every day, or will they kill us with another Anthony Volpe experiment at that position? – Rich
Unfortunately, I think the Nationals giving up on Garcia at second base was enough for the Yankees to give up on him at second base. I don’t agree with it. I would be playing Garcia at second base one or two times a week now to keep him somewhat fresh there, it just doesn’t seem like something the Yankees want to do.
The Yankees are a roster mostly made up of platoon players with enormous flaws. Goldschmidt can hit lefties and field his position, but he can’t hit righties, doesn’t field the way he used to, is slow and can only play one position. Rice is the best hitter on the team not named Judge, but really has no position. Garcia is the third-best hitter on the team, but was moved off second base and isn’t very good at first base. Jazz Chisholm has the athletic ability to be a star, but is mentally fragile, and may be the worst situational hitter I have ever seen. Ryan McMahon can’t throw the ball in the air from third to first and can’t hit lefties. Heliot Ramos can hit lefties, but can’t touch righties and makes Jasson Dominguez look like Ken Griffey Jr. in the outfield. Trent Grisham is treated like he’s actually Griffey Jr. with the team telling everyone how great he is defensively when he isn’t and continuing to bat him at the top of the lineup when he’s hitting .210 with a .310 on-base percentage. Wells is having one of the worst offensive seasons in the history of the sport and Ali Sanchez is so bad he can’t take away playing time from the guy having one of the worst offensive seasons in the history of the sport. Their third catcher — who they claim would start on half of the teams in the league — can’t even start on their team.
There are five Yankees who should play every day: Judge, Garcia, Rice, Cody Bellinger and George Lombard Jr. Everyone else should play based on recent production and matchups. Unfortunately, that’s not how the Yankees determine playing time. It’s based on money owed then veteran status then reputation and then actual production.
Anthony Volpe will be back. He will most likely be back as the team’s second baseman next season, and I would actually be OK with that. At second base, I would be OK with him being given a chance there. I wouldn’t be OK with him being given years or even a year there. I would treat him like every other player in team history has been treated other than him: perform and you will play. I would be extremely quick to pull the plug if it’s not working out after two months. I have no doubts he can field the position with the shorter throw to first, but he has to improve his hitting to league average.
Volpe has recently played third base at Triple-A too. So maybe they are thinking of creating another Jose Caballero, or creating another platoon option for McMahon for next year.
I could see this being the Yankees’ Opening Day lineup against Dylan Cease:
Ben Rice, DH
Aaron Judge, RF
Luis Garcia, 1B
Cody Bellinger, LF
Spencer Jones, CF
Anthony Volpe (surprisingly 3-for-10 against Cease), 2B
Ryan McMahon, 3B
George Lombard Jr., SS
Austin Wells, C
(Ideally, Lombard Jr. will develop into the everyday leadoff hitter of the future. Until then, I would bat Judge leadoff in every game the way the Dodgers and Phillies do with Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Schwarber.)
This team has a way of making mediocre pitchers look like Bob Gibson. Given that this West Coast swing is against teams with staffs brimming with mediocrity, and the Yanks are riding high coming off the Boston series, the next couple of series feel like trap games to me. Add in the gassed pen that Aaron Boone continues to misuse and it looks like a real possibility. How do you see the West Coast trip shaking out? – Sam
The Yankees historically don’t play well in Anaheim and that includes during this awful Angels era. I went back and looked at the last five seasons and the Yankees are 7-8 in Anaheim during that time. The Angels won 77, 73, 73, 63 and 72 games in those years. This year, the Angels have the worst record in the majors and are on pace to lose 100 games for the first time in franchise history. I could see the Angels series not being easy and being somewhat of a trap, especially the Monday game, with the Yankees coming off essentially a postseason series, having to fly across the country and using a rookie starter.
As for the San Diego portion of the trip, the Yankees need to do to the Padres what the Rays just did to them as retribution. The Padres had multi-run late leads over the Rays on both Saturday and Sunday and lost both games, so the Yankees went 3-1 against the Red Sox and lost a half-game in the standings. The Yankees need to go at least 4-2 against the Angels and Padres.
I’m the President of the Anti-Aaron Boone Fan Club and dream about the day he’s no longer the manager of the Yankees. I don’t think he has misused the bullpen, I just think he has no idea what he’s doing with bullpen management, which he displays daily with his attempts to steal outs against the heart of the opposition’s order.
Will Judge play the field when he returns so that we can get Rice and Garcia in the lineup every day? If so will our great manager play Jones in CF against lefties? Sadly I know the answer to the last question. – Tony
I’m sure Judge will have some dumb load management plan when he returns, like playing a full game in right field and then sitting the next game and then serving as the DH for the next game and then sitting the next game and then playing right field for a full game and so on. The Yankees believe they have figured out a scientific way to beat injuries and yet Cole missed all of last season, Rodon has missed a lot of this season, Fried has been on the injured list twice, Clarke Schmidt missed all of last season and Luis Gil has missed most of this season. Their load plan hasn’t worked in a near-decade of attempts with Giancarlo Stanton. Wells, Bellinger, Grisham and McMahon have all been on the IL this year. Injuries happen. It’s idiotic because if Judge is healthy enough to play then he should play every day. He needs at-bats with a limited number of games remaining before October.
The Yankees have to get Rice and Garcia in the lineup at the same time and that means Judge in the field. As for Jones in center field, this is Alex Verdugo in left field in 2024 and Anthony Volpe at shortstop from 2023-2026 all over again. The Yankees will continue to tell everyone that what they see with their own eyes isn’t the truth with Grisham’s defense and they will tell you his offensive numbers aren’t who he really is. Jones won’t be playing center field until 2027.
Grisham is a .160 career hitter in 26 playoff games with three home runs and seven RBIs in 109 plate appearances. On what planet does he deserve to play center field in the playoffs over Jones, especially considering Grisham’s glacial foot speed compared to Jones, who is the fastest guy on the Yankees? – Rick
Trent Grisham hit 34 home runs last season and not a single one came against a pitcher who started a postseason game. Then he hit .138/.219/.207 in the postseason. Grisham can’t hit elite pitching. He doesn’t hit for average, doesn’t have a high on-base percentage and doesn’t homer enough. He has limited speed and just an OK arm. He’s no longer even a good center fielder. He has zero traditional tools, but he does possess one tool that’s more powerful than the actual five: the Yankees internally love him.
It’s ironic Grisham couldn’t see the field in 2024 because the Yankees internally loved Verdugo, and now Grisham is getting the same treatment. It’s the same tool Volpe possesses that allowed him to start at shortstop for four years and the tool that will have him start next season in the Yankees’ infield. Grisham is going to play in October. He’s going to play over Jones until the last out of the Yankees’ season when he’s no longer a Yankee, whenever that may be.
Last modified: Aug 31, 2026
